Sports minister Gayton McKenzie this week spent thousands of words defending the millions of rand spent on the World Cup “delegation and programme expenditure”. He sounded as defensive as England had tried to be against Argentina in the semifinal and with as little effect (England lost 2-1 after leading most of the match).
Providing details of who went to the World Cup and what it cost taxpayers has just made the R31m extravagance seem more extreme and distasteful.
In a reply to parliamentary questions, the ministry revealed that R7.86m was spent on the minister, “two support staff”, the director-general and 14 members of the “project team”, with another R3.36m for “suites” from which to watch the games, plus R3m for “spectator match tickets”.
The cost of a “South Africa 2010 Legends exhibition match, involving 27 people in total”, ran to R6.7m. And then R10m — a suspiciously round number — was allocated for “fan engagement, partnership activations and legacy activities (including the costs of 30 artists and cultural participants, and the project delivery team from a service provider)”.
According to McKenzie, “spending a budget is not a scandal”. He says “spending public money to position South Africa on such a platform is not a deviation” from his department’s mandate.
Activities apparently falling under this mandate were “visiting the pyramids of Teotihuacán as part of our cultural diplomacy” and direct engagement with the organisers of the Mexico City Formula 1 Grand Prix to gather “commercial lessons”. Oh, and “mopani worms became popular in Mexico because of our chefs’ work there”.
“This was not a holiday,” says McKenzie. “It was a co-ordinated national branding, cultural diplomacy and investment promotion programme.”
Well, yes. The question is whether this kind of project should be a priority when so many sports and cultural organisations in South Africa are desperately short of cash.
It must also be asked whether the commendable attention to detail in accounting for all the expenditure will be matched when the outcomes of all the “investment” are to be measured, if indeed they can be at all.
By contrast, consider what the positive impact might have been if McKenzie had said that such an expedition to the World Cup had been costed, but that the government had decided that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
When a company, state department or other entity receives an unqualified audit, this is often seen as a cause for celebration. But it is not.
An unqualified audit is necessary but not sufficient. All it tells you is that the auditors find the financial statements to be accurate, transparent and compliant with accounting frameworks, with no material errors.
In that sense, McKenzie’s World Cup project may in the end pass with flying colours. But an unqualified audit does not tell us whether the money has been well spent, whether it serves the strategy of the organisation, or indeed whether it has achieved anything.
It is possible to budget impeccably and accountably for expenditure that is actually irresponsible, wasteful and fruitless.